The present invention relates generally to a system and method for the automatic reuse (hereafter referred to simply as “auto-reuse”) of data and/or document text (hereafter referred to simply as “document text” or “text”). Although one envisioned application for the present invention is for the reuse of document text in medical reports, it will be appreciated that the application of the present invention is not limited to the field of medicine.
The present invention is intended to solve the problems encountered by document creators in high volume document workflows where the document creators wish to reuse text contained in preexisting documents or other information sources. Document creators often find it expedient to insert information contained in preexisting documents. Information for which reuse typically is desired includes often-repeated phrases, boilerplate text, and lists. For example, in the field of medicine, the desired information may be lists of a patient's current problems, medications, allergies, procedures, and/or a history of a patient's present illness. Medical personnel dictating medical reports may need to repeat such information in several documents, resulting in a high volume of document creation.
Some existing solutions for the reuse of document text allow users to search documents stored in a repository and reuse certain text from the stored documents when creating new documents. Other existing solutions utilize a template document structure wherein stored documents are subdivided into defined sections, which may be reused in new documents having similar sections. Still other existing solutions allow users to create documents based on querying a database containing stored documents and reusing the results of the query in the new documents.
One disadvantage of existing solutions is that they are ill-equipped to simultaneously insert information from a database, such as boilerplate text, and query and insert information from a preexisting document repository. Another disadvantage of existing solutions is that they do not enable users to create business rules to designate which sources of information are suitable for inclusion in creating documents with reused text. Because of this, users must manually pick and choose the appropriate text to be reused for each new document, making text reuse only slightly less work than retyping the text in the first place.
Therefore, a need exists for a flexible document creation system that is capable of responding better to the needs of document creators, particularly in high volume document situations. For example, there exists a need to provide medical personnel with an efficient document creation system that will save valuable time in the dictation of medical reports that often contain information present in preexisting documents residing in several sources.